Beauty In the Breakdown
by Nirvana1
Summary: A story about the ups and downs of Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura's relationship. [NaruSaku, oneshot].


**Author:** Nirvana

**Rating:** T

**Category:** Drama/Romance

**Summary:** (NaruSaku, oneshot) Smiling, Sakura watches Naruto's eyes bleed red, his claws form, his manic grin and knows this is it, they will die...

**Disclaimer: **We all know the drill, but I must say it anyway. I do not own Naruto or any of the characters, they rightfully belong to their respective owners.

**Beauty In the Breakdown**

**Air**

He can't breathe when he watches her fists make the ground collapse and quake, when she saves one life after another, when she glances at him and scowls, because it only reassures him of why she will always be the love of his life.

**Apples**

Naruto knew he and Sakura had reached the level of friendship he'd always dreamt of when he awoke in the hospital to the sight of her peeling apples by his bedside.

**Beginning**

Contrary to popular belief, Sakura clearly remembers their relationship starting on a playground at the tender age of six; when a clumsy, dirty Naruto stumbled towards her with a dandelion and said, "You're pretty."

**Coffee**

Sluggishly, Naruto and Sakura offer each other a cup of steaming coffee, quickly drink it together and without a word, Sakura leaves to finish her hospital shift while Naruto waits without complaint.

**Dark**

She can only describe him as ethereal, even as the Chidori splits open his chest, his very blue eyes glazing over as he collapses in a bed of grass, his blood pooling around him, and Sakura can't remember whether she fainted or screamed or cursed Kami's name but she awakens in the dark and in a cold sweat, crying for the impossible as an inevitability, and for the boy who always seemed to be walking in the opposite direction.

**Despair**

Though Sakura drowsily smiles up at him, her breathing is labored, her wounds will not stop bleeding, and Naruto can't understand it because he's trained under the infamous Copy-Nin and a Legendary Sannin and should be prepared for this but can only manage to whisper, "Please don't leave me, Sakura-chan."

**Doors**

Without remorse, Sakura literally kicks a whining Naruto out of her house before hissing, "I swear Uzumaki, if I catch you in my apartment one more time without using the front door…!"

**Drink**

"You've been drinking," Naruto murmurs, comically horrified, and Sakura, breath heavy with sake, goofily smiles before placing a poorly aimed kiss against his jaw line.

**Duty**

Naruto and Sakura stared down at their beaming five year old daughter, stunned into silence and disbelief until Naruto exclaimed the very words that had been lost along with Sakura's voice: "What do you mean you don't want be a kunoichi when you grow up?!"

**Earth**

After almost three years, when her teammate returned home, she remembered the way he embraced her and somewhere along the way, Sakura lost herself in his touch and in his scent, realizing Naruto, after all this time, still smelt like the forest: sweet, musky, and spicy.

**End**

Smiling, Sakura watches Naruto's eyes bleed red, his claws form, his manic grin and knows this is it, they will die, but lets her feet take her to him, without remorse, she leaves her logic and her reason behind for her heart.

**Fall**

He is the Fourth's 'legacy', the village outcast, the Kyuubi, and everything Sakura is _not _looking for; but when Naruto looks at her, all the reasons why he shouldn't fall in love don't seem to matter when he does.

**Fire**

His breath is searing against her skin, his hot fingers tracing her inner thighs when he makes his quiet confession: "Sasuke...I was jealous of him...because he had you," and in return, Sakura can only earnestly kiss him to prove Naruto has her _now and forever_, that he is the _only_ man who can bring forth such passion and set her body aflame.

**Flexible**

From afar, Sakura watches Naruto train, watches as the muscles beneath his arms, abdomen, and back _bunch_ and _tense _and _coil_ and _flex_ and suddenly, grinning blue eyes meet hers and Sakura blushes deeply, knowing she's been caught.

**Flying**

Naruto suddenly felt his breath catch, his heart swell and ache, his body heavy and drained because he wanted to die and soar all at once when Sakura took his hands, pressed them against her stomach and murmured, "I'm pregnant."

**Food**

Sakura felt a shiver course down her spine as Naruto's lips drew lazy circles down her perspiring body, his watchful, ravenous eyes flickering from red to blue and blue to red, knowing he would soon make her his and devour each delicious hug and touch and kiss and moan she would offer to him.

**Foot**

On a late Saturday morning, nestled and tangled between the sheets of their bed, Sakura screamed in delight when Naruto pounced and attacked her feet, leaving her in a fit of giggles and laughter.

**Grave**

In spite of his mirth and his smiles and his silliness, it's been many years since her death, and Naruto still finds it quite difficult to even mention her name.

**Green**

Secretly, Naruto loved to watch Sakura wake in the morning, watch her eyes open slowly, watch those sleepy, piercing emerald orbs focus on him because he would never fail to remember _why_ green was his favorite color.

**Head**

Great power always comes with a greater price, Naruto knows this with every fiber of his being because there are those times he _wants_ to succumb, be vengeful, stop caring, and he's terrified not even Sakura can keep the Kyuubi's impulses at bay for much longer.

**Hollow**

When they make love for the first time, it happens the night before he is to wed Hinata and despite the fact he feels empty and abandoned when Sakura leaves him in the early morning, Naruto wouldn't have changed a thing, from the sweet taste of her lips to the tears that were not his.

**Honor**

An injured Sakura crumples to the ground next to an unconscious Naruto, her vision blurring with tears because they have lost Sasuke _again_, because it seems like they will never find closure with their honored promise to bring him home, and Sakura quietly wonders aloud, "Why do we keep doing this?"

**Hope**

Naruto is _not_ Sakura's knight in shining armor because he is loud, he is rude, he burps, he chews with his mouth open, _and he scratches himself_; but when he looks at her, smiles and _looks_ at her as if he would do _anything_ for her, that childlike hope she buried in her heart so long ago does not seem so distant.

**Light**

In a moment of afterglow, Sakura glanced up at Naruto and watched as a small smile graced his lips, growing bit by bit until he was grinning widely at her, his eyes so bright it almost _hurt_ to look and though Sakura wanted to say something else, "I love you" was what came out instead.

**Lost**

Desperately, Sakura kissed Naruto before awkwardly tracing her fingers down his bare torso, letting him press an eager hand against her breast and all the while, closing her eyes against the clear image of Sasuke in her head before whispering, "Naruto, I want this, I want _this_."

**Old**

When they break off their relationship, Sakura's hung up over it because she selfishly believed she would never be Naruto's _previous_ lover, that his world would still revolve around her no matter how vain or wishy-washy or bitchy she got, and Sakura resolved to get over him the only way she knew how: one man at a time.

**New**

Kei-kun (the new man in her life), has dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin, a handsome face and rekindles something in her she hasn't felt in years but _oh Kami_, his hands are all wrong: too soft, too stubby, scar-free, not _his_, and Sakura promptly ends their relations (she bolted during their lunch date) in search of better prospects.

**Peace**

It literally breaks his heart when Naruto discreetly watches Sakura let other men touch her, kiss her, and hold her just as intimately as he used to and every night, he wonders to himself can he find peace with this, can he be the better man and let her go?

**Poison**

Naruto awakes in the morning to the sight of a very disheveled (and possibly drunk) Sakura near his bedside, scowling, crying, and rambling, "…I'm sorry but this is not fair to me...you're acting as if everything's right in the world and I keep going on dates but they're not working because you're always on my mind and I can't _breathe_ when I think about you and it _hurts_ because _I need you_…" and she trails off into a stupor as he scrutinizes her with a serious gaze, realizing her idiocy until Naruto takes her hand in his and replies, "Marry me, Sakura-chan."

**Pretty**

When he felt his eyes blur with tears, he pressed his head against Sakura's shoulder to hide from the world; but for her, seeing him like this: broken, sobbing, and conquered, somehow, Naruto never looked more beautiful to her.

**Rain**

Sakura kneeled down to press her lips against Naruto's engraved name on the cold, wet memorial stone, noting that her first kiss tastes of sweet rain and the salt from her tears.

**Regret**

Her very first patient, a little boy (a blond-haired, blue-eyed little orphan boy), dies of hemorrhaging and though Sakura never does tell Naruto why, when she runs to his apartment later that night, she cries in his arms and tells him she is sorry for everything she has done to him.

**Roses**

As Naruto places the red rose next to the cenotaph, he knows this flower will eventually wilt and die along with everyone else's memory of her, but he will always remember Sakura, her voice, her warmth, and her smile.

**Secret**

Out of habit, he stared down at Sakura's left hand, the plain, gold wedding ring mocking him and for only this moment, Naruto cannot bring himself to feel guilty because when you break it down, it was just simple logic: Sakura was lonely, Naruto was there and Sasuke was not.

**Snakes**

Flushed and breath heavy, Sakura watched as Naruto's hands—tanned, calloused but gentle—easily parted her legs, his eyes falling on the swollen, red snake bite marring her flesh before producing kunai and murmuring, "I'm sorry, Sakura-chan but this is going to hurt."

**Solid**

Naruto remembered the first time, out of anger and spite and resentment, he purposefully hurt Sakura's feelings, and as payment, he was never able to describe what it felt like to be really _punched _by her before he lost consciousness.

**Spring**

Under the spring sun, Sakura, with a daisy as her weapon, tickled Naruto along the line of his cheekbone, caressed his hands, touched every scar, muscle and blemish to rouse him from sleep and squealed when he suddenly pulled her down for a kiss and well-deserved revenge.

**Stable**

Although Naruto has gone up against the worst villains, conquered the highest feats and even claimed the title of Hokage, sometimes, he just _needs_ to hold Sakura's hand to know that everything is okay.

**Strange**

Sometimes, Sakura found it odd she couldn't recall when exactly she fell for Naruto, but figured it probably happened around the time she realized she would've been perfectly happy watching him eat ramen for the rest of her days.

**Summer**

Though Sakura threatens him not to peek behind the tree, Naruto, with a lecher's grin, discreetly glimpses a sliver of bare hip and breast here and there as she changes into her bathing suit.

**Ugly**

"They're hideous," Sakura murmured and in return, Naruto gently kissed the deep wrinkles of her forehead and responded, "They're just as beautiful as you."

**War**

They say that all's fair in love and war, but Sakura, shattered and battle-weary, can't understand this sentiment for the life of her, even as the Rokudaime murmurs, "You did what you had to do, Sakura-chan" and she bitterly returns, "You wouldn't love me anymore if you knew what I did."

**Water**

With a smirk and a lusty gaze, Sakura began to slowly unbutton her top and it's all the distraction she needs to push an ogling but unsuspecting Naruto into the cold river.

**Welcome**

Naruto doesn't know whether to wince or to laugh when Sakura roughly thrusts him onto their bed but arrogantly comments, "I should go on more S-class missions for this kind of attention," and Sakura, flushed scarlet, bites out, "Shut-up, stupid," before crushing her lips against his.

**Wood**

"Hey, look at this," Naruto exclaimed, pointing to a nearby tree with a carved message that proclaimed, 'Naruto loves Sakura' and Sakura, blushing and giddy, hoped her mischievous little act will elicit some kind of positive reaction from the blonde.

**Author's Notes:** Yay! Finished! I hope you liked it as much as I loved writing it! Just to let you know, this fic was inspired by a Live Journal challenge. It was originally fifity themes (and a single sentence for each theme) but I cut it down to forty-five themes. Please leave a review, a comment, a suggestion, an inquiry and anything else you would like. Until next time, see ya and happy reading!


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